A legally binding treaty to fight the plastic problem

plastic pollution, which is everywhere. Plastic that is littered on the land, washes into the oceans, slowly breaks down into microplastics, and then travels to the furthest corners of the globe. In twenty twenty two, a study was published showing that microplastics had been found in antarctics. Now it's also been found in every organ of the body, including the brain.

Sick is abundant and very cheap, and on current trends, the amount we produce is set to triple by twenty sixty from four hundred and thirty million tons a year today to one point two billion tons, according to the OECD. And if that plastic is not managed, we'll see much more of it polluting our lands, oceans and bodies. It's

also not just about human health. There's an impact on climate One point two billion tons of plastic would produce as much as four billion tons of greenhouse gases, so there needs to be a fix.

The legally binding treaty is due to come into action by twenty twenty five. I caught up with Inger at COP twenty eight to hear about how negotiations are going, why big companies are dropping out of their plastic promises, and why a lack of cash is as pervasive a problem as plastic pollution.

took so long. But sometimes that's the case. When you have one hundred and ninety three be your best friends negotiating, it takes time. But in the meantime, of course, we had an open submission from all governments and partners and other interested parties where they sort of submitted in response to what was called an options paper. These submissions were received, hundreds of submissions based upon which a draft tree D

text was drafted. That's a zero drafted from A to Z. I mean, it's an actual you can it's on the website unit website and it was issued in September, so that when parties gathered in Nairobia a couple of weeks ago, they had that text to refer to.

pollution COMMA, including in the marine environment. So it's from the entire production line, if you like, from beginning to end, not just cleaning up the oceans, not just recycling, but the entire production chain, life cycle approach. And that's what this zero draft text reflected at the last I INC three in Nairobi. So there was a lot of comments from different interests, I have to say, and based upon which now the next round will be the true negotiation.

The idea, as you rightly say, is to finish this by the end of twenty twenty four.

there's a popular demand for this. You know, so every child saw what was it ten years ago? The straw and the turtle snows. Every child has seen and now they're a little bit older, but the belly of the bird full of plastic, the whale full of fishing gear. Every person, especially who lives in the global South, where sanitation collection of municipal solid waste is largely absent, knows that it is the poorer people who live with waste.

Knows that it is the drains that are supposed to carry the rain water out to sea that gets full of garbage and therefore blocks and courses inundation understands that if they burn it, their children gets asthma and other diseases from burning plastic, which contains thousands of chemicals, many of which are highly toxic. So this understanding is very real.

I think what we are seeing is very interesting from all sides, including sort of left and right, both aisles of proverbial aisles in politics, that there is a desire to find a solution. The on ramp for the solutions are slightly different because some would rather focus on a recycling side and some would rather focus on a let's find a way of reducing overall production. But there is a desire to find solutions.

would like it to be just a recycling treaty. As I say, we didn't need a treaty for having a fire brigade, we don't need a treaty for having a recycling system. It's obvious and it's something that we just need to do. The zero draft has to target primary polymers. It has to target chemicals of concern because we will end up having to recycle and the recycling. Therefore, we need to know what's in the stuff that we are recycling. But we also have to ensure that there's a degree

of justice. There are twenty million wastepickers today who make their living being the global workforce of sanitation. As hopefully we will switch to a different type of waste management. The wastepickers, when I speak to them, their aspiration is to not work on the dump but to do house to house collection. If today I'm collecting metal, tomorrow I'm collecting plastic. You understand what I'm saying. So that it becomes separated at sauce to the extent that you can

get willingness to separate in their households. That's something that we need to think about. And on the funding, there has to be a funding mechanism. Finally, I will say extended producer responsibility is something that is in the treaty. That means that there's some sort of obligation of the brand owners to have a take back scheme. Brand owners, most of them are very interested in this, but they

want any equal level playing field. There can't be that in one market it's not and in one market it is, because then it becomes unequal. We will also need to ensure that we can move stuff across boundaries that today is considered hazardous and tomorrow week it becomes wealth as we move into recycling. Then, finally, if I may legacy pollution as what we refer to what is already out

there in our oceans, our rivers, our waterways. A small island state Tuvalu, Fiji, et cetera that lives off of tourism. Just as an example, who is responsible for that beach cleanup? If I met the minister from the Saeychelles and he told me the costs of the beach cleanup just to enable tourism, these are extraordinary amounts, so there has to be some justice around this in the treaty as well.

those solutions going. Now, a new report from the OECD says that to be able to deal with just prevention of plastic from leaking into the environment would require more than a trillion dollars of investment in non OECD countries in the zero draft and in the work that you do and end up with this treaty, how is finance fitting into trying to get these solutions? Is going in all the places it must?

But don't put that burden on the Plastic Treaty. You know, the Plastic Treaty can't carry that. But the Plastic Treaty in its draft text now speaks to the imperative of investments in solid waste. Their countries will have to think about the fact that once you have the investment of the infrastructure piece and the trucks and what have you, someone has to pay the bills to pay an I wouldn't. You wouldn't if you live in Islam, you would dump because you have very little money and your priority is

to feed your kids and necessities. And the luxury paying for your garbage to be taken away is too high. So you need to find some degree of cross subsidies for that which people are willing to pay for. But on the plastic itself, the reduction itself, and the alternatives itself, no, there we are not talking these extraordinary costs. What we need to think about because the poor people who may not be able to afford to buy a big container of stuff, will buy whatever they need in a sachet.

So that's where we've seen some really neat innovation, for example El Grammo in Chile, where you own a bottle with your little microchip and you go to the store and you buy a grammo the grams that you can afford. If you can afford twenty grams, you press the button, you get the twenty of whatever. So whatever it is that you need, and you are done and at bottle

as yours forever. It's this kind of innovation that we need to leapfrog into so that we can get rid of the plastic I'm not denying the OCD study, but we need to think of them. And that's why I'm speaking to all the ifi's development banks, et cetera. They really need to lean in on the solid waste management.

of that show over the next thirty years. The osen hole is currently filling up and filling up quickly. So these things can work. But the same group of countries that have caused a problem on the climate sphere are also the group of countries that are trying to cause a problem on the plastics treat And one of the ways in which they do it is they say energy

is needed for development. They were able to insert that phrase in the Zero draft that was published earlier this year, where they said, yes we lend plastic pollution as long as it supports sustainable development. How are you going to deal with those forces?

It's hard to find a country that does not have a plastics industry, even if it's not very big. But these are jobs, and so some of the countries are concerned about Okay, yes, this is fine, but what happens as we shift to alternatives? Will they only be made in the global north? Where's the R and D? Is there going to be justice? Will we have access to the new I mean, these are real issues that are

concerning on the issue of new raw polymers. Obviously, yes, the countries that produce the polymer could be argued that they have an interest to keep producing. On the other hand, there is an understanding even amongst their populations that recycling and recycle content is critical. They too live on oceans, they too experience this. They too have a population that objects to plastic in the waste stream. And what the zero draft speaks to elimination of the single use the

single use packaging. We can do a lot, and yes, obviously they're commercial interest, but I think the other force is quite strong, and you rightly pointed out the Montreal protocol. And if I could just go back and remind listeners that in their seventies, when the theory that fluorinated gases were in fact what depleted the ozone layer, it was

highly disputed by very large American companies. There was hearings in the Senate where extraordinary things were said about how this would be impossible to face out, face down, face whatever. This wasn't a word at the time, but you know, eliminate from the production. At the time, the world was told, your food will spoil, your vaccines will go off, and you will be very hot because they're not going to be any cooling. And yet the industry was able to

step in. There are many many alternatives, and some are with us, but we're just not using them fast enough, and others we need to invent. And what's very interesting is that we are seeing many of the brand owners actually it's detracting from their shareholder value and from their company employee pride, and obviously from their brand. When their packaging is bobbing around in the water or lying on the side of the street. It is not a good thing nowadays. And so I think brand owners, many of

whom I speak to at the CEO levels. I also seek to lean in. I say to those countries that are holding on to plastic in the places where it's replaceable. We still need it for planes, trains, cars, appliances, electrical and all of that. But that kind of plastic doesn't end up in the environment. It's a packaging that does. I say to those brand owners. Look at the solar

industry PV. The early bird got the worm. Those who started investing and now controlling that market, step in and lead in this way so that you can be part of that innovation way, because it will come like it came on cooling, like it came on photovol takes.

look at companies. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation listed one hundred and fifty companies in twenty eighteen that said they would report on and reduce their plastic pollution by twenty twenty five. But five years on twenty companies have dropped out many major brands and they are unwilling to either meet the criteria or even take part in what was an obligation that seemed pretty reasonable. Why do you think a treaty which is being talked about by governments will actually get companies to do so.

It's like walking past money lying on the ground. And so what these individual companies did. They put up their hands and we're willing to do this, but if there is no system by which I take it all to the grocery shop or the supermarket, and everything, whether it's pepsi or Coca Cola or Procter and Gamble or it has to go through the same system. Honestly, it's hard for people to this one goes here, that one goes there.

It's a little bit like when you stand with your ice cream wrapping in front of the recycling and joy, okay, is this here or is it there? And where does it go? The system has to be one that has been enabled across a jurisdiction, normally a country or a group of countries. If that is in place by legislation, the national level logic follows. It's just how it works.

in terms of and or jail time. The National Environmental Management Authority of Kenya, for example, it's sort of similar to drug busts, except it's illegal plastic bag production busts, and the criminals are lined up and on Twitter and you see them all and shamefaced and so and so forth. You cannot when you land in Nairobi, the air announcement will come. If you have a plastic bag, you got to leave it on the plane, do not take it into the country. That's how it is. And it's phenomenal,

I'm telling you. And so you know it's only bags, yes, but it's a very very good beginning and people are very aware of it. And we don't have like you have in other poor countries where solid waste is absent, plastic bank trees, you know, where they have blown onto trees, not at all.

coming up towards the end. That's what I would like to really stras that this is not a North South story. It was Peru and Rwanda that sponsored the resolution at the United Nations Environment Assembly, and then they got others to jump in the Nordic see, some of the Europeans obviously, the Pacific Islands and more and more to support that resolution.

So it is not just a North South story. It is really a story lit by the global south where the global nrcessor Yeah, we can get with this, and that's quite exciting too.